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Background: Timeliness is an important and recognized measure of health care quality. Multiple health organizations worldwide have published timeliness targets for breast cancer care. We performed the first comparison of patient wait times and utilization patterns for palpable breast mass diagnosis and treatment with regard to biopsy method. Patients and Methods: Palpable breast masses in women biopsied via a fine-needle aspiration (FNA) or core biopsy at 2 affiliated academic medical centers in 2009 were analyzed if subsequently treated with excision or neoadjuvant therapy. Patient demographics, mass size and radiologic features, pathology diagnoses, and wait times to diagnosis and treatment were recorded. Results: Patients diagnosed by FNA biopsy received their biopsy diagnosis more than 8 days sooner than those diagnosed by core biopsy. Most FNA biopsies occurred the same day the patient clinically presented. Time to treatment did not differ significantly between groups. Both biopsy methods demonstrated comparable diagnostic accuracy. Breast masses diagnosed by FNA biopsy had Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) scores ranging from 1 through 5, whereas nearly all core biopsy cases had a BI-RADS score of 4 or greater. All patient groups were demographically comparable and presented with similar breast mass sizes. Conclusions: Wait times for breast biopsies were significantly shorter for patients diagnosed by FNA compared with core biopsy. FNA biopsy was often used to evaluate breast masses of low clinical suspicion. In light of health care goals for practice improvement and cost containment, breast FNA biopsy may be an underused resource.

The NCCN Guidelines for Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma discuss the diagnosis and management of adenocarcinomas of the exocrine pancreas and are intended to assist with clinical decision-making. These NCCN Guidelines Insights summarize major discussion points from the 2014 NCCN Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Panel meeting. The panel discussion focused mainly on the management of borderline resectable and locally advanced disease. In particular, the panel discussed the definition of borderline resectable disease, role of neoadjuvant therapy in borderline disease, role of chemoradiation in locally advanced disease, and potential role of newer, more active chemotherapy regimens in both settings.

The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) for Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma discuss the workup and management of tumors of the exocrine pancreas. These NCCN Guidelines Insights provide a summary and explanation of major changes to the 2012 NCCN Guidelines for Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma. The panel made 3 significant updates to the guidelines: 1) more detail was added regarding multiphase CT techniques for diagnosis and staging of pancreatic cancer, and pancreas protocol MRI was added as an emerging alternative to CT; 2) the use of a fluoropyrimidine plus oxaliplatin (e.g., 5-FU/leucovorin/oxaliplatin or capecitabine/oxaliplatin) was added as an acceptable chemotherapy combination for patients with advanced or metastatic disease and good performance status as a category 2B recommendation; and 3) the panel developed new recommendations concerning surgical technique and pathologic analysis and reporting.